Chapter LI

1. WHEN Thothma was quite dead the priests carried his body into the temple, fully believing his spirit would return from heaven and transform the body from corruptible into incorruptible flesh to live forever. And they laid the corpse in the place previously designated by the Gods, and sealed it up according to the commands of the false Osiris, Savior of men.

2. Osiris had said: Whoso believeth in me, him will I save unto everlasting life, and though he lose his body, yet again shall he find it, and the corruptible flesh shall be changed in the twinkling of an eye, and become incorruptible unto life everlasting, with the spirit that abideth therein.

3. On the fifth day the priests opened the chamber, for according to the LAWS OF MIRACLES, on that day, the spirit should accomplish the feat; but lo and behold, it came not, and the body still lay cold and dead. But the Gods came in sar'gis and said unto the priests: Seal ye up the body for other five days. And the priests did as commanded; and after that they examined it again, but life had not returned. Again they were commanded to seal it up for other five days, which they did, but life returned not.

4. Houaka, who was now the high p. 449 priest, inquired of Osiris concerning the matter. And Osiris, through his servant God, Egupt, answered him, saying: Go fetch a young man who is warm in the blood, which is life in the flesh, and he shall be the seventh son of an adept, and know how to CAST HIMSELF IN DEATH.

5. The priests brought Xaian, who was in his twenty-fourth year, and when he came into the Holy Chamber he was bid cast himself in death for benefit of the king's soul. And Xaian thus cast himself, and he was sealed in the chamber of death for five days along with the king's corpse. And in five days the priests brought both bodies into the Holy Chamber, according to instructions. And Osiris came and commanded them to stand around the bodies, and when they had done so, the angels from Osiris' kingdom came and spirited away the body of the king, and they brought back the spirit of Xaian to inhabit the body of Xaian, and put it in possession thereof, making believe it was the spirit of Thothma returned.

6. Houaka said to the Gods: Where is the body of Thothma? Hath it been transformed? And the Gods answered: It hath gone to heaven, and will return after many days. But as to the spirit of the king, behold, he is with thee. And the priests spoke to Xaian, believing it was Thothma. And after three days they came forth out of the temple and recrowned Xaian, Thothma the Second, and they proclaimed it abroad that these things were true, howbeit they knew to the contrary.

7. As to the spirit of Thothma, at the time of death, it was taken to Agho'aden and put amongst the servants of Osiris' heavenly kingdom, and thus enslaved. So Xaian became king of Egupt.

8. Now, as regardeth the false Gods, Osiris and his confederates, they never tried to reincarnate the spirit of Thothma; but because of the virtues and the wisdom of Thothma, they used him for benefit of Osiris' heavenly kingdom, and to establish Osiris everlastingly on the earth as the all highest God.

9. As to the kingdoms of the land of Egupt, which succeeded Thothma, the inhabitants of the earth already know the chief part. For hundreds and hundreds of years the Eguptians were the most learned people in the world, and especially in a knowledge of the stars, and the sun and moon, and in adeptism and miracles.

10. But woe came unto them; the land became flooded with hundreds of millions of drujas; and as to the people of Egupt, the chief desire was to be able to return in spirit after death and dwell with mortals. And the things which followed are not even lawful to mention.

11. Suffice it, these spirits lost all sight of any higher heavens than to dwell on the earth; they knew no other. And they watched about when children were born, and obsessed them, driving hence the natural spirit, and growing up in the new body of the newborn, calling themselves re-incarnated; and these drujas professed that when they previously lived on earth they were great kings, or queens, or philosophers.

12. And they taught as their master, Osiris, the false, did: That there was no higher heaven than here on the earth, and that man must be re-incarnated over and over until the flesh became immortal. Not all of these spirits drove hence the natural spirit; but many merely engrafted themselves on the same body; and whilst such persons lived, these spirits lived with them and dwelt with them day and night; not knowing more than their mortal companion. And when such person died, behold, the druja went and engrafted itself on another child, and lived and dwelt with it in the same way; and thus continuing, generation after generation.

13. And because of these indulgences many of the spirits came in sar'gis in the families of the Eguptians; eating and drinking with them corporeally; yea, and even doing things whereof no man may speak, whereby dire disease seized upon the flesh of mortals; and their blood and their flesh became inhabited with vermin. The people became idlers and vagrants; the lands were not tilled, and the places of learning became deserted ruins.